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Janet's TAKE On Movies -- Janet Tennis, wife of film critic Roger Tennis, is webmaster/social media manager for CinemaClips.com and offers her Take on select movies via social media. An avid reader, many of her insightful quick CLIPS (Takes) analyze — in just a few words — how stories go from page to the Silver Screen. Overall, her short reviews just simply complement Roger’s reviews. She also produces and edits CLIPS - the monthly, nationally syndicated television series. Movies rated A to D.

HAPPY END

Janet's TAKE: #HappyEndMovie has solid performances that can't save this slow-moving depiction of the angst of a wealthy French family. D

There areno sympathetic characters and Director Michael Haneke's approach is dark to say the least.

Synopsis:
When her mother falls ill under mysterious circumstances, young Eve (Fantine Harduin) is sent to live with her estranged father’s relatives in Calais. The Laurent family – wealthy, neurotic and self-obsessed – own a lucrative construction company and live in a sprawling mansion house, waited on by servants. But trouble is brewing, as a series of intergenerational back-stabbings threaten to tear the family apart. Meanwhile, distracted by infidelities and betrayals, they fail to notice that their new arrival has a sinister secret of her own. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Happy End bears all the hallmarks of (Director) Haneke’s uniquely stark and unsympathetic style. Pairing pitch-black humor with chillingly precise direction, it’s proof – if we ever needed it – that he remains one of modern cinema’s true visionaries. -Sony Pictures Classics